


Immortals

by aleclightnerd



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 15:38:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7112035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aleclightnerd/pseuds/aleclightnerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alexander is a vampire and runs the New York clane with Camille Belcourt. When downworlders begin to disappear, seemingly kidnapped, they turn to the great warlock Magnus Bane for help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for this fic: Mentions of blood, violence.

In the 20th century, in the beginning of the year 1930, Alexander Lightwood died. His name got written in the papers next to the word deceased, the parabatai connection he and his half brother had shared broke and his family grieved his death. His funeral was in the name of shadowhunters, the mourning people who said their goodbyes were all dressed in white. His bones were buried in the ground, which was a unusual way to treat the body of a deceased shadowhunter. Most shadowhunters were burned, and to be buried meant that you had died unworthy. Alexander had died in battle, a great way to end the mortal life in. The reason to why he was buried was that Isabelle, his dear sister, had insisted on it. She had told everyone that he had to be buried, without giving them a reason why. That, and that the cause of his death had been a female vampire making him consume lots of her blood as he was dying, was the reason to why Alexander Lightwood later walked the earth again. 

His second birth was painful. It began in darkness and fury, then exploded into hunger. A hunger stronger than any hunger he had ever felt in his previous life. This was a hunger combined with thirst, it was as if he was starving and strongly dehydrated at the same time. But the thing he wanted the most was not water nor bread, those things would not satisfy his needs. What he needed was the blood of a human. The thought of warm, red blood in his throat was what made him violently attack what was around him. The tree in his coffin broke. After that, things became blurry, he only felt cold soil against his skin and the hunger that was pounding through his entire system as he fought his way up.  
When he broke out of his prison in the ground, what first met his eyes, that now saw so much better than ever before, was the hem of a dress. It was not the sky nor the other graves around him, he did not even put a thought to the fact that he himself were breaking out of one. What he first saw was what his creator had decided to wear when she attended his second birth.  
Later, he got to know this woman very well. Better than he probably ever wanted. But at the moment of his second birth, Alexander did not care about that. He did not care about her dress either, he could not, his desire of blood was too strong for his thoughts to be focused on anything else. The only thing he wanted to know from this woman was if she could help him satisfy his needs. Luckily, she could. She handed him blood that still was lukewarm. As he drank, the woman brushed the dirt off his face with her fingers. She was the nurse who guided him into his second life, and also the mother who created and fed him. Her name was Camille Belcourt.

In time, Camille grew to be more than just that, she became his family and friend, his queen and his guidance. She was the one by his side when he missed his old life, his old family, his old self. She comforted him or told him to dry his tears and grow up. Whatever she did, it worked, but not without Alexander hurting. It took a long time for him to adjust to his new life. It wasn’t until after half a decade that he even tried to say what he was out loud, and it took him even longer to accept it. He never visited his family out of fear of what they would think of what he had become. In the first years of his second life, he would find himself being scared to move around the city, even at night when the dark kept him safe and hidden. His fear was about meeting his former family, that they would find out what he had become. He could not imagine how disappointed Robert Lightwood would be at seeing his son as a vampire - a bloodsucking downworlder, not worthy of his last name. He shed his last name, and became known as Alexander, ruler of the New York Clan. If anyone would want to put another name to him, it would be Belcourt.The boy he used to be - Alec Lightwood - was replaced by a cold replica of himself. He forced himself to forget his family, to save them and himself the pain of ever meeting again. Camille was his new family, and she was all that he needed. 

Alexander had been one of Camille’s early turnings. She had arrived in New York only a few years before she had turned him, and he had become her new beginning. Camille was old, so very old, but she was not very acquainted with New York, she had told him. Alexander did not know much of where she had been before that, but she spoke english with a vague London accent, that probably had been caused by years in the city over the sea. He never asked her about her past though, and she did not ask about his, it was a silent agreement that they had. The past was filled with so many tears and so much hurting, but still, not a thing could be changed about it. Instead they focused on the future, Camille as the head of the New York vampire clan, and Alexander at her side, as a loyal friend and her right hand. In their early years together, Camille had shown interest in having a romantic relationship with him, but Alexander had dismissed. It had not affected her greatly though, she had a talent of finding other romantic and sexual partners. She surrounded herself with human subjugates and downworlders who would touch her in the most intimate ways possible.  
Alexander had not showed any interests of anything like that, not before he rejected Camille and not after. It was a subject that Camille briefly had tried to ask him about, but he had avoided it every time, not wanting to talk about it. The truth was, there had been someone he had had feelings for, but that person had been in his previous life, and not even then he had became close in the way he had wished for with them. His romantic and sexual life had to stay a secret to the world around him, just as his past as a shadowhunter. He was a quiet young - in vampire meanings, too - man who followed Camille where she went and ruled the clan by her side, and he intended to stay that way. He was great at handling weapons and could kill a dozen men in a minute if one gave him a bow and enough arrows. Others feared him, he was the right hand of Camille Belcourt, and the two of them together ruled the Manhattan clan with a strong grip. They seemed to know what every vampire was doing, and they punished those who did not follow their rules. Their rules weren’t as strict as the Clave’s, but their rules did exist, and their punishments could be even crueler than the Clave’s. Camille found pleasure in feeding of humans, even though the clave had demonstrated their disapproval of that multiple times. Alexander, who felt that he had been wronged by all shadowhunters, had little respect for the Clave. Camille had less. Together they broke their rules, and ruled over the vampires of New York. It was their golden time, the days worth remembering.  
Alexander’s new life turned out pretty great. He had power, security, and a family. There was one thing it lacked, though. Love. That was, until he met Magnus Bane.


	2. The Party

 

**New York, 2007.**

The carriage stopped right outside the apartment building. Cold air brushed against Alexander’s chin as he opened the door and stepped down on the ground, right into a puddle. It had been raining all day, and the day before that too. It had only stopped lightly for the night, only to be replaced with a harsh wind that blew through Brooklyn. A piece of paper that looked very much like the party invitation they had gotten was flying through the air a bit down on the street. It wasn’t wet, so it had probably been recently dumped. If the vampire motorcycles that were parked outside the house wasn’t enough to tell them that they were right, the paper and the daringly dressed people - or, not people - were. They had arrived outside the party of  _ Magnus the Magnificent Warlock _ , as their invitation had said. 

Camille stepped out of the carriage behind him, taking his hand as he reached it out for her. They weren’t as modern as the vampires who rode their fancy bikes, Camille enjoyed the royal feeling of moving around in a beautiful carriage. Alexander didn’t mind it either, he had never really understood the concept of a motorcycle, or how you rode one. 

“I hate Brooklyn,” he said loudly, to himself mainly. Camille made an agreeing sound next to him. Surprisingly, she didn’t seem all that pleased to be here. Usually, she was overwhelmed by parties, and loved every second in the spotlight. But this one didn’t seem to satisfy her expectations. The reason to that could be because they weren’t there to enjoy themselves, but for business.

“Shall we go in,” Camille said, not really as a question, more like she was going in and assumed that Alexander would follow. He did, without answering her proposal. Before Camille swung the door open, he managed to read what was written on it. It was only four letters, forming a short word, possibly this Magnus the Magnificent Warlock’s last name. If that was the case, the warlock was called Magnus Bane. Camille moved into the house, and Alexander followed closely, silently wondering what was the problem. She moved so quickly, and no sign of a smile could be seen on her painted lips. He could not help but wonder if it was because of the warlock - she had not seemed this annoyed even when she had got the news that they now were here to deliver to this man. He had heard of Magnus Bane before, but only slightly, in conversations of others. But from what he knew, Magnus Bane had something to do with Camille’s past. Exactly what he had with it Alexander did not know, but judging from Camille’s calm but angry look, he wasn’t on Camille’s good side. His suspicions were confirmed only a short while later, when they had moved up the stairs that led up to the loft, and then into what was the real home. It was huge, Alexander noticed, before Camille shouted over the music, dragging his and the attention of everyone else in the room towards her.

“ _ MAGNUS BANE _ ,” she yelled in a demanding tone. People didn’t react as they usually did when Camille had that tone, the didn’t crunch in fear, but they did react. Everyone in the room probably knew her name, and what she was capable of. But as the music continued to play, the creatures continued to dance - only maybe a bit further away from the door where Camille and Alexander were standing. But, one person, a man who looked like he could be in his early twenties, maybe nineteen, moved towards them. Supposing that he probably was Magnus Bane, the warlock, he could be way older than that though. 

“Camille,” he said as he came closer. Alexander watched his slender figure. He was tall, way taller than the average, and looked like he had asian origin. His slender figure was covered  by a dark shirt, but on the lower half of his body, he was wearing nothing but boxers. Alexander thanked the magical but dull light that danced around the room for making no one being able to see him look at the warlock. For a second after walking into the room Alexander had suspected it to be witchlights on the walls, due to the kind of light they caused, but he felt no harm from it, so that could not be possible. What downworlder would even have witchlights in their home, the sort of lights only worked in the presence of a shadowhunter?    
“What business do you have here? If I don’t recall wrong, last time we had an actual conversation was just after you had cheated on my on your nice little trip to Russia,” Magnus said. Alexander felt like a very awkward third wheel, and he would have left the conversation if it hadn’t been for Camille’s way of keeping him close. She wanted him to stay there, so he did, however uncomfortable he felt. At least she didn’t seem to mind that he now had found out what sort of past those two had together - a complicated one, Alexander decided.

“Too bad that’s what you recall, to my knowing, we’ve had better conversations after that,” Camille answered, in the same cold tone as the warlock had spoken to her. Before the warlock could answer, a fairy interrupted by bumping into Camille and spilling his drink over the floor, luckily for him sparing Camille’s shoes. The fairy was wearing a revealing dress made out of flowers and gold, it seemed. After further inspection, Alexander noticed that the gold was body paint, and if he had been fully alive and not undead, his body would have reacted by blushing. Now, he only stood there looking a little bit awkward, wondering if  _ no one _ here thought about wearing enough clothing. The fairy man tried to get Camille to dance with him, but she seemed poorly flattered by his approach. Instead she looked Magnus in the eye and said “We would like to talk to you in private.” 

For the first time, Magnus seemed to actually notice Alexander. Alexander didn’t blame him though, the sight of Camille was quite impressive, and probably even more if she happened to be your cheating ex that you hadn’t met in a century or so. He felt how the warlock watched him, as if he decided whether to trust him or not. For a moment Alexander thought that he would come with some rude remark, but he didn’t, he only turned and walked into what turned out to be his bedroom. Camille and Alexander followed him into the room silently. The first thing Alexander noticed was how colorful the room was. He couldn’t look anywhere without feeling like he got a rainbow thrown in his face. The second thing he noticed was how there were no people other than themselves in the room. He supposed that the warlock had put a spell on the room to keep people out, otherwise there probably would be downworlders doing inappropriate things on the bed. It seemed unlikely that the room had been left alone just because the guests respected the host’s privacy so much that they hadn’t used his bedroom to fuck in. 

“So?” Magnus said, raising an eyebrow at them. Alexander thought of how good that sort of cocky look fitted on the warlock’s face. He kept that to himself though, suspecting that Camille maybe wouldn’t appreciate that sort of comment. Camille cleared her throat, then she began to talk in a silent and serious voice. 

“I suppose you have heard about the recent disappearances,” she started, looking at Magnus for confirmation. “As far as we know, children of the night as well as humans have been taken, mostly young ones. The most recent victim is a newly turned vampire, at the mortal age of sixteen. She was taken only last night.”

Magnus looked at her, then at Alexander, and crossed his arms over his stomach.    
“I don’t see how this has anything to do with me,” he said, but he didn’t deny hearing about it. It was the latest talk among downworlders at the moment. Fear had hit the streets of New York, and rumours were circulating regarding who had done this, and who would be next. 

“You may change your mind about that when you hear the news that a special… _ source _ has given me. There is a person who may know what the abductors are planning. To what this source knows, they are trying to make us immortals fertile.”   
“That is not even possible,” he stated casually. “Only faeries can, but not us else.”   
“There are people who believe it is,” Camille said calmly. “Faeries can have been taken too, and they might try to.. mix species. Last time someone tried that, it didn’t end well,” she said, referring to one time when a shadowhunter had tried to create a new, stronger sort of shadowhunters by mixing them with demons. Needless to say, it had been a big mess that others had had to clean up. 

“What has made you suspect this? Only until last friday we were sure that it was  _ nephilim _ , weren’t we?” Magnus said, a concerned wrinkle between his eyebrows. Alexander bit his lip when he heard the name of the shadowhunters. 

“Robberies connected to the disappearance,” Camille said. “A fertility clinic was robbed, and we have found traces that obviously are… not natural,” she continued, suggesting that it was not downworlders, or even shadowhunters, but something else. Demons.

Magnus raised his eyebrows and shrugged, accepting her explanation. 

“So, you aren’t in the mood to get some children, are you,” Magnus said as he poured up a drink for himself. 

“I’m not the motherly type,” Camille answered with no whatsoever emotion in her voice, but there were a slight trace of a smile on her lips. Her words were a lie, and everyone in the room knew that. She cared deeply for the ones she had turned. It was the change - and the switch of power that it brang - that she did not want. Alexander watched them, as quietly as he had watched the conversation up to that moment. Magnus nodded, the emotional silence he had shed before gone and replaced by what seemed to be his usual, cocky self. 

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll help you.” The light was shining on his face, revealing circles beneath his eyes that the makeup covering his face had not been able to hide. He took a sip of his drink, then he poured all of the liquor into his mouth. When he had swallowed it all he placed the glass on a nearby table. 

“Shall we discuss the price then,” Camille proposed, back to business. Magnus’s gaze ran quickly over Alexander and their eyes met for a second, then wandered off, back to Camille. Alexander felt a bit uncomfortable, he had seen something in the warlock’s eyes that he couldn’t quite place, and it didn’t make him feel good. He quickly stared down on the floor to avoid meeting the warlock’s gaze again. 

“We can discuss that later,” Magnus said. “If there were nothing else, I have a party to host.” Alexander listened as Magnus left the room, his heeled shoes making a melodic sound as he walked. Alec looked at Camille, and for the first time since they had gotten into the room, she looked back at him. Her look told him that their job there was done. Magnus Bane was willing to help them. 

 

The carriage ride back home was silent. They sat there to the sound of the carriage's wheels against the asphalt and the rain falling down. They rode through the city of New York unnoticed by mundanes, whose mortal eyes could not see through the veil of magic that was cast over them. It wasn’t until they were almost at their destination - their home, as to call it - as Camille’s voice broke the silence. 

“Magnus and I have a past,” she said as she stared out the window. Alexander felt that she wanted to keep talking, so he only answered quietly, waiting for her to continue. “We were together, as you may have noticed. Then he broke it off after I had seeked company elsewhere. He told me that he had a lover, a shadowhunter boy, who looked very much like you, actually.” She became silent, and the pause in the conversation gave Alexander time to reflect, put pieces together. The reason to why the warlock had looked at him so weirdly must have been because he looked like a ghost from his past, and no other reason.

“Do you think he would marry me, Alexander?” she asked, dragging him out of his thoughts of relief. He looked at her, but she was still staring out the window. 

“Do you have the intention of marrying him?” he asked as the carriage turned around a corner, ignoring the red light. 

“Maybe. I don’t know yet, but it would be an interesting idea, would it not?” In Camille’s voice there were a hint of mockery, but Alexander could tell that she was serious from the way her voice hardened at the end of the sentence. 

“Indeed it would,” he only said, and just like that the conversation ended. As the carriage stopped, Alexander wondered why it felt so wrong, the conversation he had had with Camille. He didn’t like it. He was used to the way she played with people’s hearts and he had learned not to mind, it was not his business to care and judge. But what he had learned about Camille and Magnus’s past together, he felt sorry for the warlock that he could be used by Camille again. He knew how Camille broke hearts; she did not only tear them in two, she pulverized them, making the pieces unable to fit together again. When he stepped out of the carriage and onto the wet sidewalk, he made a promise to himself. He would not interfere with any of Camille’s personal business. He already knew that it would be a hard promise to keep. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter three.**

_He is dying. He can feel the life in him slowly slip away. The cold floor that he is lying on will be his deathbed, the last face he will ever see is the vampire’s cold one. His sight becomes blurry, then comes into focus again. He thinks of Isabelle and Jace moving around the house on different floors. They will be sad, so sad, when they find him here, his life gone. Maybe they both will shed a tear, or kill the bastard who killed him. His thoughts are blurry as well, he can’t keep control of his mind, but for his inner sight he sees his siblings, all three of them, smiling. He sees his father and his mother, and he sees…. a woman. She doesn’t belong there, what is she doing? She is real, he understands, and tries to move, but his body is limp. She takes out a shining object and cuts in her own skin, making blood pour out. She puts her wounded arm against his mouth and presses her fingertips against his nose, so that he has to swallow. Once again, he tries to struggle, but he is so weak - he cannot move. It goes on for minutes and minutes, her arm against his mouth, forcing him to drink her blood. He cannot proceed the thought of why she would do such a thing, why humiliate him even more as he is dying, and not just leave him at peace. He tries to scream, but the sound that leaves his lips is muffled by her arm. When she finally leaves him alone he inhales deeply. It is the last breath he will take before he dies, and he knows that as he feels his body and mind shut down, slipping away into the unknown called death. The last reasonable though he has is that he can not breathe, can not breathe._

 

The room was dark, as always - the windows were covered by thick planks, and no sunlight came through. Alexander sat up in his bed, breathing in and out as if he just had been suffocating. As undead he had no need to breathe, but it was calming to do so, especially after having such a dream. Even after such a long time, his dreams still reminded him of his death.

He looked at the clock beside his bed. It showed him that he had slept for three hours, and that it still was light outside. Vampires didn’t need that much of sleep, but since the days had to be spent inside it was what most ones used their time to. Alexander decided that he could rest no more, it was impossible to fall back into the bed and rest calmingly after a dream of that kind. Instead, he got out of the bed and reached for a shirt that hung over a chair. It was only a few weeks old, Camille had bought it for him at one of those late shopping night events that were held every now and then. He wasn’t very much into shopping or fashion, and he had no clue about what sort of shirt  it was that he was wearing, other than it was dark blue and very comfortable. Camille had told him that it was some designer shirt, but Alexander could not notice it in any way at all. To him, the shirt looked exactly the same as his low price T-shirts. But, Alexander wasn’t the most observant when it came to clothes.

He dragged the shirt over his head, feeling a little bit less uncomfortable. It wasn’t unusual, him dreaming about dying, but the fact that he had experienced it many times didn’t make it much easier. It was a very long time since he died, and with the years passing, the dream had become less frequent, but he still had it.

He sighed and crossed the room, looking out into the hallway. He only had a thin piece of textile covering the opening where a door once was, the door itself had broken in a fight a few weeks ago. Since it was hard to get a door during the dark hours of the day, and the fact that the clan had been dealing with worse problems for the last weeks, he had just hung an old curtain over door frame. There weren’t many vampires living on this floor, he and Camille and some of the more respected ones were the only ones, and the rest of the rooms stood empty. Alexander had moved in some things in one of the previously empty rooms though, so that he would have a place to work. The work he planned on doing in that room had to do with the disappearances, so he hoped it was only temporary. The room he had taken had probably never been used as an office before, since it had no windows. Mundanes were very fond of light, Alexander knew, since they couldn’t see without it. It was ideal for a nap room, but it had probably been used as a storage. However, Alexander had found this room perfect for working with the disappearances. He wasn’t sure exactly how he had thought they would find the abductors, of course he had realised that they couldn’t put up posters and go scream _Have you seen some kidnapped vampires?_ over the neighbourhood, but he hadn’t imagined that it would be so much paperwork, so much research. He had drawn on maps and written down information, everything in a try to find out more details about the disappearances. His work hadn’t really succeeded yet, but he hoped that with the warlock’s help they would get further in the investigation. After coming back from the party last night, with the promise that he would help, Alexander knew that their chances of finding these vampires had increased.

Alexander only knew one of the vampires who had gone missing, the rest he had only heard of. Her name was Lily, and if Camille and Alexander died, she might have been the one to take over the clan after them. She was a natural leader, beautiful enough to make strangers trust her and manipulative enough to make them follow her rules. She had been around when Alexander was newly turned, but he didn’t know her real age - to his knowing, she hadn’t told anyone. But he suspected that Camille knew, since she knew everything about her fellow clan members, even the things that she shouldn’t be able to know. She just didn’t know where to find her.

Alexander hoped that Magnus Bane - the warlock - knew, or that he would, when he had tried to search for her. He knew that normal tracking magic did not work on vampires, but surely the high warlock of Brooklyn had to know a way around that. Alexander believed that the warlock was their best chance of finding her before it was too late.

The room that now worked as his office was completely dark, except for the strips of light that came from a small electric lamp that gave out a calming, red light. He and Camille had went together to a mundane furniture shop one time last year, and found that adorable light. Alexander had just _needed_ it, it was so cute and practical.

He sat down on the floor of the office and focused on the book in front of him. It was a guide about finding vampires who didn’t want to be found, but as far as he had read, it had just said that he wouldn’t find them. What really would help them, he thought, was if vampires were trackable. Sadly, they weren’t - and maybe that was why the abductors had chosen just the children of the night as their victims. He sighed and turned page.

He searched through the whole book, and another one after that, without finding anything of value. He was at the edge of giving up when the door swung open and a figure stormed in. When Alexander got a look their face, it showed to be Raphael Santiago, a highly respected vampire in the clan. If Alexander wasn’t totally wrong, Raphael should be resting right now - he had been badly hurt in a battle the other day, and should not be standing. If he was up going around it meant that something groundbreaking had happened.

“A human subjugate has been taken, Alexander,” Raphael said as he stopped in the middle of the room, standing on one of the books that Alexander had been going through. He didn’t mind though - that book was worthless. He handed over a file, some papers, on which the name of the girl that had been taken was written, and some other useful information. Also a necklace that had been hers were with it, for tracking.

“Can we track it?” Alexander didn’t even reflect over using the word _it_ about the human subjugate until after he had said it. He was talking about a human being, but to him they were nothing more than simple mundanes, or even food.   
“It seems to be a protected place, but surely Magnus Bane - the warlock - can break through it.” Raphael’s voice didn’t reveal any sign of him knowing the warlock, but Alexander knew their history. He wasn’t sure how pleased Raphael was that they had hired him, but surely, he couldn’t mind. Magnus Bane was the high warlock of Brooklyn, and their best chance at getting Lily - and the others, of course, too - back. That had to be their number one priority.

“Have you contacted him yet?” Alexander asked, rising to his feet.

“No, Camille is out. It can wait, can it not?” Even though the words were formed as a question, it was clear that Raphael didn’t mean them as one.   
“Raphael,” Alexander started, his voice low and held up by annoyance. He didn’t tell Raphael exactly what was wrong with what he had just said, that it could be a matter of minutes if Lily’s life was at stake. Instead, he used his calmest voice and said: “I’ll go tell him.”

Before Raphael could do something annoying, like say something again, Alexander left the room. Only after doing so he realised that he had left his shoes in there. He couldn’t go outside without shoes, and he wouldn’t risk his pride and enter that room again. He would have to go into his room and get a new pair. Or, they weren’t exactly new, more like seventy years old, but they were still working. When he was in there he changed pants, too, from a pair that was around forty years old into new, black jeans. He suspected that those jeans would make him melt in more than if he wore pants that could be put in a museum.

Since Camille had the carriage, Alexander decided that he would take the subway. He almost never did that, the last time must have been at least seven years ago. The walk to the station in the chilly air was short, but well there, he got a bit lost. Everything was so big, and there were so many people there. He ended up by a map, and he tried to figure out the right way for a minute before giving up. He would just take a train that said Brooklyn, or at least went in the right direction, and hopefully end up at the right place.

 

He ended up getting help by two women to find the right train. One of which had fair, white skin and blonde hair, and her ears were a bit pointy, the way that fae ears looked. Alec wondered if she was part fairy, and if she knew about it. The other woman, who held a tight grip around the first woman’s hand, had short black hair and was of asian descent. She had a black tattoo on her neck, and Alexander was taken aback by how much it looked like a rune. Then he blinked, and realized that it was nothing. Just a snake. He thanked them and moved on, and finally got on a crowded train that would take him to Brooklyn.

The whole train ride was highly uncomfortable. People everywhere, showing other people out of the way to get off the train. Mundane transportation was truly horrible, Alexander decided, as the train stopped at the third station with a jerk, throwing a mundane boy against his body. He almost fell over, but having the balance of a vampire, he saved himself the trouble of embarrassing himself on the subway. When the train finally stopped on the right station, Alexander stepped of, relieved. The walk to the warlock’s house was easy and short, which also was relieving for Alexander, since he didn’t get lost. When he stood there, knocking at Magnus Bane’s door, he wondered if Raphael wasn’t right, maybe Camille should do this. What if he didn’t listen to him, or if he wasn’t home? Then his trip here would have been unnecessary. He collected his thoughts, and just as he wondered if he should turn around and come back later, the door swung open, to reveal a sparkling Magnus Bane. Literally sparkling, his clothes were covered in something that looked like glitter, but could be some sort of slime. Alexander wasn’t sure.

“Vampire,” The warlock said, sounding not sceptical, but a bit surprised.

“Alexander, actually,” Alexander said, realising not until after he had spoken that he should go straight to business.

“I know,” Magnus said and opened the door, to let him in. Alexander was left without words, he had imagined that they would stand here outside and talk, and that he could leave after a minute or so. But of course, this was business so important that you couldn’t let any mundanes walking by and overhear it. He stepped inside, watching as Magnus closed the door behind him. Not really sure how to continue, he followed Magnus up the stairs quietly. When guided into the living room, that now was cleaned to perfection, Alexander reminded himself of what he was going to say.

“Well?” Magnus said, placing himself in a chair, pointing at another one for Alexander to sit down in. Alexander did as instructed, and then opened his mouth to talk.   
“We would like you to track one of the human subjugates. We suspect that she has been taken by the same people who have taken members of our clan.”

“Just give me a thing of hers and I’ll find her for you,” Magnus said, drumming his fingers against his knee. His nails were painted in a dark blue color, which they hadn’t been last night.

“Well, it seems that she might be in a.. hidden place,” Alexander said, trying to remember exactly what Raphael had said. “At least that’s what Raphael, Raphael Santiago, said.” Magnus raised one of his eyebrows, questioning, but then nodded.

“I’ll do my best,” he said. Alexander felt his gaze on him, but he didn’t meet his eyes, feeling a bit uncomfortable.

“Tell me,” Magnus said when they had stayed silent for a while. “Why aren’t Camille with you?” Alexander looked up at him, and accidentally met his eyes for a second, before turning his gaze away.

“She had other business to attend,” he said, wondering what Camille _really_ was doing. Raphael hadn’t told him, and he hadn’t asked. He hadn’t even thought about it until now, actually.

“Good,” Magnus said. Alexander suspected that he mostly spoke to himself, so he didn’t say something about his comment.

“Do you need anything to perform the tracking spell?” Alexander offered, willing to help.

“Nothing else than a possession of hers,” Magnus said, repeating what he asked for earlier. “And maybe some coffee,” he then added. Alexander reached into his pocket and took up the necklace belonging to the human subjugate. Regarding the coffee, Magnus had already fixed it. With a snap of his fingers, two cups of boiling hot coffee appeared on the table.  

“An espresso _pour moi_ , and an espresso à la blood for you, Alexander,” Magnus said with a mockery french accent. Either he didn’t know that espresso was rather italian than french, or he knew and completely ignored it. Alexander looked at the cups, one looked normal, one had a more reddish color, probably caused by blood. Not really sure if he should take the cup or leave to let Magnus work, he sat still for a moment. Then Magnus took a cup in his hands, so Alexander did the same. He sipped the coffee not carefully enough, and ended up accidentally burning himself on the tongue. Vampires were bad with heat, but good with healing, so it didn’t really hurt, burt he flinched anyway, and spilled some coffee on his shirt. Immediately, Magnus was up, a napkin in his hand and pressed it against his chest, where the coffee had hit. Alexander looked at him weirdly, wondering what _the fuck_ he was doing.

“I’m saving your shirt,” Magnus said, without Alexander having to ask the question. “It’s designer, you know.”

“Oh, thank.. you?” Alexander answered without moving, not sure how to react. Having Magnus in his personal space, _touching him_ made him uncomfortable, but it also made him feel something else, that only could be described as warmth. Not the fire kind of warmth that would kill you, but a pleasing, controlled fire. When Magnus handed over the napkin to him, Alexander wondered exactly what it was that had happened. He didn’t dwell on it though, shrugging it off as being burned by hot coffee side effects.

When their mugs were empty several moments of silence later, Alexander stood up, thinking that he probably should leave. Before he could say something, like _thank you for the coffee_ or something else that probably would sound stupid, Magnus stood up as well.

“Do you have a cellphone?” he asked. As a matter of fact, Alexander did have a cellphone. A year ago or so some of the younger vampires had brought up the fact that sending letters were an extremely ineffective way to communicate, so the whole clan had gotten cellphones. He tried to always have it with him, but sometimes he forgot it. To be totally honest, he wasn’t entirely sure how to use it. Lily had helped him change the background picture to one of a fluffy animated cat, but other than that, he only knew how to answer incoming calls.

“Yes, I do. Why?” he answered, not mentioning the part about him rarely using it.   
“So that I can contact you when I find this girl, of course,” Magnus said, reaching out his hand to let Alexander place his phone in it. Alexander didn’t know how to put in new contacts so he handed it over, but he didn’t say that, a little bit too proud to tell Magnus that he was pretty bad at new technology.

“Cute cat,” Magnus said when he gave back the phone, now with a new contact - _HIGH WARLOCK OF BROOKLYN_ \- in it. Alexander only looked down on the phone, memorizing the number.

After that, Alexander knew he had to leave. Since he was of no assistance, he should leave, even though he didn’t exactly want to. It wasn’t because he wanted to spend the rest of the night at a stranger’s place, but rather because he didn’t want to return to the hotel, where he knew nothing about the state of progress. He wanted to be informed about everything that Magnus found out, every last bit of it. He couldn’t ask to stay there, though. The warlock probably needed all the concentration he could to work, and he would probably only be in the way. So he left.

Before he walked out the door, he heard Magnus yell from one of the inner rooms of the loft.

“I’ll call you!”

Alexander closed the door and went out into the night.

 

When Alexander stepped inside the hotel’s doors, the place was filled with life, or rather, lack of. Undead life, deadness, whatever you might want to call it. There were vampires in every room, talking loudly. Not everyone seemed as bothered as he about the disappearances. Before he could slide away into his office unnoticed, Camille came up to him. She wasn’t running around as the other vampires, but she was doing.. something. Alexander wasn’t exactly sure what they were doing, but it involved feeding of mundanes. Frankly, he didn’t care.

“ _Alexander!_ ” Camille exclaimed, sounding happier than he had heard her in a while. “You’re back!” Her hair got into his face when she came close to embrace him. Her lips smelled of blood and alcohol when she pressed them against his chin, leaving a red mark the way an artist would sign their work. They had probably catched some mundanes out drinking, and got drunk on their blood. He couldn’t talk to Camille about this, anything, tonight.

“Raphael told me you went to see Magnus _ssssssss_ ,” she said, dragging out the last letter as far as possible.

“I did,” Alexander said, carefully pushing away her arms from his shoulders.

“He’s _handsome_ ,” Camille said, laughing. “I’ve _got_ to marry him.”

Alec wasn’t sure if she was honest, or if she was making a joke that he didn’t catch. Camille returned to a man’s arms, a vampire that Alexander wasn’t very familiar with. The man didn’t seem to mind that she was talking about marrying someone else while she was practically clinging on him. Instead he kissed her passionately, licking the lipstick of her lips.

Alexander was glad that he wouldn’t have to deal with her tonight, she was completely in the hands of the younger male who adored her like she was the one who had put the stars in the sky. Drunk - and, possibly high - Camille was trouble, and Alexander didn’t want any more of that now. He wanted sleep. And maybe a text message from _HIGH WARLOCK OF BROOKLYN_ telling him that everything would be alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is work from last year and it's book canon and I posted it on ffn last year thank u and bye

**Author's Note:**

> I started publishing this fic on FFN last year, but recently I felt that I wanted to fix some typos and put it here! This fic is inspired by Fall Out Boy's album American Beauty/American Psycho, and while I don't think there are any super obvious connections to the album it could still be fun to listen to it. Oh, and this fic is following the book universe canon. (Though, it's still an AU and doesn't really follow book events.) Unfortunately. This is why Camille is blonde, etc.   
> This fic takes place in Modern time (2007? 2016? who knows!), and this prologue was mostly written to present their relationship. Also, Alec is refered to as Alexander a long way into the fic. This is because Izzy and Jace called him Alec, and the nickname reminds him of his old life. Very painful etc. Well, that's brought up more in later chapters.


End file.
